Setting goals is important to do to keep yourself on track, but if you don’t set good goals, they won’t be nearly as effective. Good goals should be SMART.

S- Specific. Be as specific as you can with how you word your goal. You should be able to answer any questions (who, what, where, why, etc.) about your goal. An unclear goal = An unclear focus.A clear goal = A clear focus.

M- Measurable. You should be able to have some way to make sure you’re on track to complete your goal and have a definite way to measure if you were successful or not. It can be helpful to set yourself deadlines for small goals which add up to the big one.

A- Attainable. This is arguably the hardest and most important aspect of goalsetting. Your goal needs to be hard enough that you’ll have to push yourself to achieve it and feel a sense of accomplishment when you do, but not so hard that you flat out give up. This is a delicate balance, but if you’re honest with yourself, you should be able to figure out how difficult your goal needs to be.

R- Relevant. Your goal should be relevant. That means that YOU should care about your goal, not anyone else. At the end of the day, you’re the one working towards it and you’re the one that needs to have the motivation to achieve your goal, so it should affect you, at least in some way. Otherwise it’s not worth putting time into it.

T- Time-specific. Goals need a time frame. Some goals have to be set indefinitely, but avoid these as much as possible. By giving yourself a timeframe, you’ll push yourself to finish it by your deadline. Just think about the projects/homework you’ve done in school. For most people, more work gets done the closer to the deadline you are.

Goals can be very complicated, but with a SMART goal, you give yourself a good chance of actually achieving what you want. But even if you don’t, it’s not the end of the world. As Ernest Hemingway said, “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”